


milky way

by miehczyslaw



Category: Invader Zim
Genre: (dib's voice) im going to defeat u with the power of my gay awakening and this steak i found!!, Crack Treated Seriously, Future Fic, M/M, Shippy Gen, enemies AND friends to ????
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-06
Updated: 2019-09-06
Packaged: 2020-11-03 20:42:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,126
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20534678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miehczyslaw/pseuds/miehczyslaw
Summary: Zim yells at him that he already knows this, that he’s Zim the almighty Invader Irken ‘for whom do you take me’ and more nonsense.Dib waits patiently for him to finish. Zim calms down, eventually.And they share a look—that kind of look.(the one that has a lot of inherent homoeroticism of PG-15 classification but is notentirelygay.)(Dib has earned it, by Saturn!)Or, 3 times Dib doesn't acknowledge his crush + 1 time he does.





	milky way

**Author's Note:**

> and on the third day Jesus said: let there be zadr

**i. sometimes humans are complete fools**

“I can’t believe it. By Jupiter!”

Gaz narrows her eyes, concentrated on the console to defeat the Final Boss of this level, and resists with all her self-control _the imperative need_ to pound Dib to death, because she loves him, _really_— but sometimes he can be so... so infuriating, _in particular when she’s in the middle of an important game_.

(besides, with her contacts she can always use a credible alibi and get away with it).

“_It has to be a lie_!”

She clenches her lips, pressing the right command. And tries to breathe deeply, to resist it.

“This is impossible...!”

Being an only child would have its advantages? Maybe—

“Gaz, this is...”

But she doesn’t, in fact, resist. And explodes (figuratively, not as if her intestines stain the wall, eww).

“_Is what_, Dib? Did Zim get a higher grade than you on an exam and now it turns out that he stole Einstein’s brain from Area 51? Does Zim plan to heat the sun and prevent you from tanning this summer? What the fuck is with Zim now?” Dib looks at her, with doubt, and Gaz can’t help raise an eyebrow when she realizes that Dib was moving the first copy of what would be the magazine of Mysterious Mysteries.

For the first time in the whole miserable history of humanity Dib is not shouting something related to Zim. Uh.

(ding, ding! Someone _call 911, it's an EMERGENCY_!)

The world must be very bad then— what a pity, rip.

“Dib, you’re not another android, are you?” Gaz, more calm, returns her attention to the screen, without preamble. “The last time I poured water into one it almost destroyed the kitchen.”

“Excuse me Gaz! _I’m me_! You should be perfectly able to tell the difference between evil alien artificial intelligence and your brother!” he replies. “Unless... _unless_ Zim had inserted a personality change chip into my brain while I was sleeping... and if that were the case he would be able to alter my emotiones at any moment and drive me crazy! And then it would be the perfect time to attack and destroy Earth and...! Gaz, you haven’t noticed anything weird in my personality lately, right?!” A pause. “Uhm, why I’m talking to myself by the way?”

“Because I haven’t ripped your mouth yet.” Dib smiles at her, half nervous half cheeky. He has grown guts in recent years, ugh. “Now shut up, I’m not in the mood to endure your Jane Austen romance.”

“Jane Austen romance? What...?”

“_Just_— Stop talking about your boyfriend already.”

Dib makes an horror grimace as the colors rise to his face, just like a Christmas tree.

Gaz can admit that in any other situation (for example where she’s not at such an important level in her videogame) that would be funny. _Perhaps_. Then she reconsiders it— and in the face of what looks like a bullshit speech refuting her point— she hits Dib with a sandwich.

Between whimpers Dib rolls on the floor.

_He’s surprised_, so to speak.

Because Gaz says that his (justified!) obssesion with Zim goes for more, that he has... feelings, _non-violent feelings_, for Zim. Zim, an inept and violent boy who’s not even a boy in the first place.

The idea stuns him so much that he remains silent for three hours.

When Gaz finishes her game she pats his head, muttering “good boy,” and gives him a candy as a reward.

x

**ii. sometimes aliens are more so**

You shouldn’t overestimate alien intelligence, not Irken, at least.

It is something that Dib has learned from experience.

And he would lie by not admitting that he’s glad, a little. It facilitates greatly his plans to protect Earth from invaders. He had expected, after all, to have to deal with a more advanced being, intellectually and spiritually and physically and anything else that ended with ‘-ally’, all those things people said aliens looked like on television and movies and comics. So— _this_, that Zim doesn’t look like Alien or Predator _or even freaking E.T._, is a disappointment, but at the same time it isn’t.

And although Zim— on certain occasions, _on many occasions_— appears to be a complete moron, he’s also more intelligent than even himself can realize. (Not that Dib is ever going to tell him this, nope. He would first volunteer for a dissection in biology class.)

“No matter what your plan is, I will stop you, on behalf of the human race!” he repeats, his usual monologue.

“Poor, big-headed and insignificant human,” Zim teases. “You aren’t up to me.”

And, okay, _there’s some reason there_.

“Perhaps! but it’s not _my fault_ that you are so short.”

Zim hisses and bristles like a cat.

“UGH, YOU BELIEVE YOU’RE SO SMART! Well, I have news for you, _Dib_, you will never know that it was me who polluted the hydraulic system with soap until it is too late and the whole humanity blews bubbles to death!”

“Yesssssss, bubbles!”

Dib takes a minute to look at GIR, who is spinning on the sidewalk laughing like a madman (he could be an excellent actor as the villain in a trashy horror movie, hm) and then at Zim, who watches him haughtily with a sly smile and crossed arms. Dib frowns.

“My IQ says otherwise. And you just revealed your plans to me, stupid alien!”

Silence.

Zim makes a strange face, but immediately points at him an accusing finger and shouts with all his might: “LIES, LIES!” before closing the door of his house, stamping it on his face. Dib staggers back and hears Zim ordering to his garden gnomes to blow him into thousands of bits. Which means that Dib won another fight and must retire inmediately, or die.

The score goes: Dib - 19, Zim - 21.

And Dib _likes to be alive_, thank you very much.

So while Dib runs and jumps, dodging the laser beams, he also yells at Zim that their issues don’t end there, that he will return and ruin every plan that Zim devises as he has ruined the previous ones. However, he unintentionally recalls the conversation he had days before with Gaz as well.

The mere fact that his... _his epic rivalry_ with Zim derives from feeling affection towards him _is too frightening_— more than bees flying outdoors or moose in white rooms. It is that momentary panic that causes him to lose concentration and crash into a trash can, being covered by banana peels and milk containers.

From the safety of his house Zim opens a curtain and laughs shamelessly at Dib. His face almost looks kinda nice even. Hypothetically speaking.

_Okay then_.

Dib - 19, Zim - 22.

While he removes a banana peel from his hair he concludes that a true idiocy would be _to have a crush on Zim_.

Of course Gaz is just crazy and has a very active imagination, of course— although he will never say it out loud. Ever.

x

**iii. sometimes love hates you, and it comes like a steak**

Dib is aware of that detail since Tak tried to destroy the earth when they were children.

At that time Zim mistakenly believed that the girl liked Dib too, or so Dib later understood by the information he collected about it.

Zim also got mad at him for an absurd cause— _more absurd than usual_— like he was stealing Tak, thus preventing their intergalactic romance from flourishing, even if there was no romance between them. And why would Dib want to steal someone from Zim when Zim _himself_ was available?! Wait— no, that’s not it.

To put it simple, Dib hates Valentine’s Day.

Besides Zim, he’s the only one who doesn’t receive a piece of meat, and he’s not interested in it— he prefers chocolates, and _true paranormal scientists_ don’t settle for cheap steaks from know which cow— but it’s frustrating. Very much.

After his several failed attempts of the day to prove that Zim is not human, Dib has resigned himself to spending the rest of the class being quiet, thinking about the Mystery Mysteries episodes that he still needs to see, about the UFO prototype he will present at their science fair, and how his only purpose for now is to hurry back home and eat some burritos.

That is, until someone throws straigh to his face a greasy paper with sausages inside of it, almost breaking his glasses.

Turning to the right where Zim is, Dib notices with suspicion that Zim is whistling disinterested— _too disinterested_. He doesn’t care. There’s a first time for everything, right? maybe some classmate finally noticed his _incredible charm_...

Dib looks back at the torn notebook sheet, stores it in his backpack, and sighs in resignation.

However after a while the incident is repeated, and Dib receives another blow.

_Plop!_

Followed by five more, which leave him greasy and with a terrible headache.

_For the Loch Nes Monster, now what_.

Soon Zim’s amusement doesn’t go so unnoticed and Dib confirms his suspicion that it’s really Zim who is giving him all this meat for... for... what reason?

(a joke of terrible taste, most likely.)

(even if his stomach is churning and _he feels all warm for no reason_— obviously he must have contracted chickenpox _or something_.)

Upon hearing the bell Dib rushes out of the classroom and returns one of the meats to Zim, specifically a steak, hitting him in the face and causing him screams of pain. His skin is surrounded by steam and Zim curses him ‘as every human larva teenage boy would do.’

Dib doesn’t even try to hide his laughs and Gaz watches him suspiciously the rest of the afternoon.

(and yeah, Dib continues to hate Valentine’s Day. But. He can admit that if Zim is involved, the ways to show affection without chocolate are _vaguely_ entertaining.)

x

**iv. sometimes hate is a bad joke**  
—which is used to hide the truth.

And the truth is that without Zim, Dib is nothing.

And vice versa.

Because no matter how much beef and pork they threw to each other in a meat war every fourteenth of February, how many failed plans of conquest unite them _instead of separating them_, and how much Gaz insists that—

“It’s okay to get out of the damn closet Dib.”

“I WOULD! If you let me open the door!”

—they both need each other. Not even the True Science can change that.

For that reason _and that reason only_ when he hears GIR beg him to become Zim’s archynemesis again (although his intention is just separate Zim from his beloved sofa) Dib recognizes what he has not wanted to since that fateful day when they met.

Zim is a dumbass. But he is _his_ dumbass, err, his nemesis. Yep.

And they can smile at each other and they can wish to erase the other from the face of the planet and Zim may threaten him to take his brains out and _Dib will be glad_.

He challenges him to give it a try and GIR watches them while he eats nachos.

If both are equally dumb, Dib can even ignore Zim’s constant denials when Dib says that he must be warming up to Earth and its habitants. (Which is true, stupid alien, he has never known how to lie well.)

So, thinking carefully about it, Dib sighs, without bothering to refute with any argument the: “Well, I will not be able to end humanity if another insignificant being does it first, it’s not that I like your miserable specie nor that I want specifically _your_ cooperation duh!” of Zim, who is chewing his lips and struggles not to admit that _again_ he needs his help to save the planet from a catastrophe.

“Comeeeee on, intergalactic garbage. Earth is in danger.”

Zim yells at him that he already knows this, that he’s Zim the almighty Invader Irken ‘for whom do you take me’ and more nonsense.

Dib waits patiently for him to finish. Zim calms down, eventually.

And they share a look— _that kind of look_.

(the one that has a lot of inherent homoeroticism of PG-15 classification but is not _entirely_ gay.)

(Dib has earned it, by Saturn!)

They smile at each other, too.

And in the company of Gaz— who has nothing better to do, _or so she says_— they leave.

Not without Zim telling GIR first to throw him a mutated rat with which he must deal all the way.

_Agggghhhh_.

Because outside of their puberty hormones, Gaz’s inappropriate comments, and a rivalry that scratches the ridiculous— they would never change.

“Disgusting human, why are you holding my hand! Stop spreading me your germs with your sweaty hands!”

(not even remotely.)


End file.
